Same time this year for Spirit Song

Friday 22 March 2013, 8:47pm

A year after scoring her biggest win in controversial circumstances in the Group Two Sunline Stakes at Moonee Valley Spirit Song returned to put the record straight.

"There's no argument about tonight," said trainer Aaron Purcell after his mare added the race to her record for a second time.

Last year's Sunline Stakes was Spirit Song's most recent win, but Purcell had little concern about the long absence from the winning list.

"This was her goal for this campaign, the race we'd set her for," he said.

Spirit Song ($2.90 fav)cleared out to win by 1-1/2 lengths from the Caulfield Cup placegetter Lights Of Heaven with Goldslick ($31) a further neck away in third place.

On the same night 12 months ago Spirit Song crossed the line in second place behind the Tasmanian mare Lady Lynette who, in her final race start, appeared to have gone out in a blaze of glory.

But jockey Nash Rawiller spoiled the party, lodging a successful protest that gave SPirit Song the win.

While she hadn't won another race since, Spirit Song had been building steadily toward Friday night's victory.

Purcell knew two weeks ago at Flemington that the mare was on track for the repeat when she finished a close second in the Schweppes Stakes, a race she had also won a year ago.

"It's her time of the year," said winning rider Craig Williams.

"That was a dominant win that was thoroughly deserved."

Purcell will now take aim at the Queen Of The Turf Stakes (1500m) at Rosehill on April 6.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »